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Johnson's gas-or-Ukraine choice, 16 November 2021
Summary
A look back at the British prime minister's remarks on Russian gas, Ukraine and the troop reports, set against the Belarus border dispute.
What choice did Boris Johnson say the west faced on 16 November 2021? The British Prime Minister said it would have to decide between relying on Russian gas and supporting Ukraine, as reports of Russian military buildups near the Ukrainian border circulated.
The remark came as gas was already part of a separate argument over the Belarus–European Union border crisis. On 11 November, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko suggested that Belarus could halt natural gas supplies into Europe if the EU pushed ahead with more sanctions. Those measures concerned human trafficking, which had led to the crisis. EU member states were due to decide on the new sanctions the following week.
On 13 November, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded. He said such a threat from Belarus would breach the contract with Russia, and suggested Lukashenko might have spoken in a fit of temper.
Two pressures, one theme
Taken together, the statements of those days put gas supplies at the centre of political argument. Lukashenko tied them to the sanctions dispute. Putin treated a cut-off as a breach of contract. Johnson, on 16 November 2021, linked Russian gas to the question of support for Ukraine.
The reported troop buildups near the Ukrainian border formed the backdrop to Johnson's comments. He framed the issue as a decision the west would have to make, rather than announcing a specific policy.
